


the sound of your heart in your head

by hydrochaeris



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: ADHD Chowder, Insomnia, M/M, Pre-Relationship, i guess this is mildly hurt/comfort too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-11
Updated: 2017-02-11
Packaged: 2018-09-23 15:29:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9663614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hydrochaeris/pseuds/hydrochaeris
Summary: It’s 3:25 am, and everything is slow and quiet.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sapphee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphee/gifts).



> i finally wrote some chowder pov! and projected my adhd tendencies all over him, of course. written for the prompt "I know you're awake" on tumblr, which you can reblog [here](http://wholsomholsom.tumblr.com/post/157080876051/also-for-the-prompts-47-a-ship-with-nursey)!

_It’s 2:35 am_ , Chowder thinks, _so if I fall asleep right now I’ll get four hours and twenty-five minutes of sleep._ He watches the digital glow of the clock flicker and flit in the edges of his vision. His blurry vision. Because he should sleep.

The clock changes. He’s restless, shifting back and forth on his mattress, watching it on the desk set perpendicular to the foot of his bed. The clock changes as he blinks. The numbers shift with an inaudible click and it’s 3:18 am.

_It’s 3:18 am,_ Chowder thinks, _so if I fall asleep right now I’ll get three hours and forty-two minutes of sleep._

His brain is thinking of a thousand things so quickly he can’t even process them. All he knows is his mind is a train track and his thoughts are freight trains, like the set he used to play with when he was a baby, except not, because those trains were large and plastic and covered in his saliva, and these trains are narrow and metal and clanking through the subway of his mind at unethical speeds. Everything inside his head feels so fast. Everything inside his head is runs together and none of it makes any sense.

It’s weird, consciously focusing on his surroundings, on things very clearly not in his head. Like the clock. Even though the clock is going fast too, but that’s just his thing with time, and how it’s gone in chunks and pieces from his brain, nothing to do with a potential clock malfunction.

It’s 3:25 am, and everything is slow and quiet. The air feels like syrup circulating through his dorm room. His roommate is asleep, not snoring, but Chowder almost wishes he was. He reaches for his phone, which is under the half of his pillow his head isn’t on top of, and winces at the glare of the screen already set at the lowest brightness. There are seventy-two unread messages from the Frog groupchat which is literally just memes, four unread from the Samwell Men’s Hockey groupchat which are most likely Ransom and Holster letting everyone know when the next kegster is, and nine unread from his Computer Science class groupchat which are just people bitching about the teacher, who Chowder knows means well but who still cannot teach to save his life.

He scrolls through his contact list almost aimlessly, because he doesn’t really want to text anyone. His sister would probably kill him for texting at this hour; he knows she hated it when they shared the same room and he was tossing and turning and couldn’t stop moving and keeping her up all night. It’s not even that late over there, but Julia’s the kind of person who goes to bed at 8 pm, so he’s gonna pass on that. He hits a random contact without looking just to do something else with his thumb.

It opens Nursey’s. Hm.

Chowder pauses with his thumb over the ‘Send message’ option. He counts to ten, or at least, he thinks he does. It’s the weird time thing fucking with him again. Okay.

He opens their text thread, the most recent messages in which are Nursey sending him a link to a nearby aquarium’s website with the caption ‘wanna check out the Sharks?’ and three eyes emojis, and himself responding ‘unoriginal. blocked.’ Nursey had left him on read for that, which, okay, that’s fair.

Chowder doesn’t really think before typing out a quick ‘I know you’re awake’ and sending it. In hindsight that was probably a bad idea. He doesn’t know shit, first of all, and second of all it’s gonna be embarrassing as hell tomorrow at practice when Nursey chirps him for sending him the ‘I know you’re up’ text when he was actually asleep for once. But also he vaguely remembers Nursey mentioning insomnia in the casual throwaway way he mentioned everything that’s important about himself, in the way that assumes everyone has it and it’s just a natural, _chill_ part of life. In the way he’d mentioned himself being one of the only nonwhite kids at Andover and hating it just to end up going to the PWI that is Samwell. In the way he’d mentioned his reading at a poetry slam once, on a day when Chowder hadn’t been able to go. In the way he’d mentioned feeling worthless and like he’d be easily forgotten when he died.

For all the shit Chowder’s memory is, you could never say he doesn’t remember things about his friends.

Chowder’s phone vibrates on his chest.

‘and i know ur awake too now that u texted. sup?’

He sighs and types, ‘idk. just can’t sleep I guess. you?’

‘bruh u shld listen to some music or a podcast or shit. train urself to fall asleep to it.’

‘is that what you do?’

The typing dots come up for a bit, then disappear like they were never there. The read receipt stays, though.

‘yeah. took for fuckin ever to train my brain tho and sometimes it doesn’t work which is annoying as shit.’

Nursey’s typing again, but Chowder responds before he sends anything else.

‘thanks for the tip!!’

‘np dude. u want podcast recs?’

‘maybe later. i’m gonna try to sleep again. i can send u music recs in return if u want!’

‘that’d be chill. thanks man’

‘:)’

Nursey doesn’t reply after ten minutes, so Chowder assumes he’s asleep and turns off his phone, sliding it back under his pillow and resuming his stare at the clock.

3:49 am.

If he falls asleep right now, he’ll get three hours and eleven minutes of sleep.


End file.
